Lotteries are common throughout the world. The sale of lottery tickets is an important source of government revenue in many jurisdictions.
Future draw lotteries typically involve the sale of a chance in a future draw game of chance to an individual. The chance is typically represented by a physical ticket sold to the lottery customer. The ticket may be printed on paper or another media. The ticket may include one or more lottery numbers, either selected by the customer, selected by a system that generates the ticket, or pre-printed on the ticket. At a prespecified future time, a number or group of numbers is randomly selected from the pool of possible numbers, e.g., by physically drawing a random number, or by computer random number generation. Tickets with numbers that match the drawn numbers are winners, and are eligible to be redeemed for a prize. The rules for determining a match and the size of the prize for a particular match may vary by the particular game or jurisdiction. For example, multiple lottery numbers may be on the card, and they may need to match the drawn numbers in any order for a small prize, and in the exact order drawn for a larger jackpot prize. The size of the prize may be predetermined, e.g., a fixed prize, or pari-mutual, e.g., all winning tickets share equally in a predefined portion of the total amount spent to buy chances in the drawing.
In some jurisdictions lottery ticket selling agents are mobile; they do not sell tickets from a particular location, but instead may travel around selling tickets. In these jurisdictions, lottery tickets are typically preprinted with lottery numbers. The ticket selling agents receive an inventory of tickets with pre-printed lottery numbers and travel around selling them. Prior to the drawing, the unsold tickets are returned for a credit. Lottery customers can only select their own desired “lucky” lottery number to the extent that a ticket with that lottery number is found in a particular ticket seller's inventory. The sale of a future-draw lottery ticket with customer-selected lottery numbers, although commonly available in jurisdictions with fixed location ticket sellers having sophisticated lottery terminals, may not be available in jurisdictions with mobile lottery ticket selling agents, or at minimum are not sold by traveling ticket sellers.
Moreover, in some jurisdictions lottery ticket selling agents are predominantly visually impaired. In some jurisdictions, the lottery is run to benefit the visually impaired, or research and services for the visually repaired. Conventional prior art lottery terminals in addition to being tied to a fixed location, are not configured to be used by visually impaired ticket agents.